Huddersfield entrepreneur wins TestTown with Panda’s Kitchen
Mon, 29 Feb 2016 16:21:00 GMT
Stephen Bond claims first prize of £10,000 with his coffee liqueurs business Panda’s Kitchen
A COFFEE liqueurs business, which began life as part of a Huddersfield student’s Enterprise Placement Year, has won the grand-final of a major national ‘young entrepreneurs’ competition entitled TestTown and has been granted a substantial first prize of £10,000.
Called Panda’s Kitchen, the enterprise is the creation of Huddersfield advertising design graduate Stephen Bond and only began after an earlier business collaboration, on a web-based publication, fell through during Stephen’s placement year.
After being urged by the University’s Enterprise Team, which is based in The Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Centre to try his hand at another venture, Stephen immediately thought of a special interest that he had pursued since the age of 18 – devising recipes for flavoured liqueurs.
Now, since its official opening in Huddersfield’s Byram Arcade less than 12 months ago, Panda’s Kitchen has gone from strength to strength.
“Winning was never my main goal going into the competition,” said Stephen. “I saw TestTown as an amazing chance for me to test my obscure products on a tough market and there were many other fantastic businesses and entrepreneurs who competed, but nevertheless winning is the icing on my liqueur-filled cake!” he added.
TestTown final
Backed by the Carnegie UK Trust, TestTown is designed to boost economic regeneration by challenging young entrepreneurs to showcase their business ideas in towns across the UK. Between July and December 2015, the TestTown competition began with ten towns from across the UK hosting an enterprise challenge in town centre spaces, with each challenge tailored to local economic needs.
In the Huddersfield TestTown, judges declared the overall winner as Adriana Tavares Green, with her business designing bespoke rugs and toppieces Adriana Tavares Rugs, and the runner-up was Stephen Bond, with his independent artisan liqueurs company.
Both were invited to take part in the grand-final at Glasgow’s Saltmarket, making Huddersfield the only town in the country with two finalists competing for the TestTown title. During three days of trading out of pop-up shops and spaces, a total of twelve businesses worked with the hosts Glasgow City Council and City Property (Glasgow) LLP in order to compete for the £10,000 investment into their business idea.
Since winning the title Stephen has been thinking about what to spend the money on. “I would love to invest in some better industrial equipment for my shop in the Byram arcade and to start attending wholesale events and wedding fairs,” said Stephen.
“It’s an extraordinary amount of money and in order to not waste this life-changing opportunity given to me by TestTown and Carnegie UK Trust, I am going to really sit down and plan how to use it effectively,” he added.
